Fake leprosy sores look nastyspecial UV torch shows invisible prayersoap cross carvinghappy and sad leperThank you cakesZornitca and Joanna lead the puppets telling us about leprosyShiela tells us a story

Messy Thank you - 25 September 2016

Messy Church moved in to the church hall, from the sports day last month in the park.

This months theme , 'What’s the point of saying “Thank You”?' makes you think this is a story about healing. Well, it is. But more importantly it is a story about being thankful.

Busy crafting

There
were ten lepers in our story: ten lepers who cry out to Jesus for
healing, and who through His power and mercy receive healing. Yet, out
of the ten, only one thinks to return to Jesus to say thank you. What
happens when this man returns demonstrates two important things we can
learn about being thankful.

Firstly, it shows us how gratitude
pleases God. Jesus did not ask the men to thank him for healing them.
He did not demand that they bow at his feet before going to the priest.
Nor did he revoke the healing for the nine who did not thank him. But
the fact that Jesus did ask “Where are the other nine?”
shows that it pleases God when we thank him for what he has done for us.

Secondly,
it shows us the kind of gratitude we should display. The Samaritan man
turned to thank Jesus as soon as he saw he was healed. He didn’t
delay by showing himself to the priest first, going to tell his family
what had happened, or even patting himself on the back for the fact
that he was now free of the disease. No, he went straight to the one
who had healed him and made it all possible. His thanks was immediate.
We also read that his thanks was loud! He wanted everyone to know what
had happened to him, and he wanted all the glory to go to God.

How
quickly and loudly do we offer thanks when Jesus answers our prayers?
Do we make sure everyone around us knows what God had done? God’s
message is clear. We should have a heart filled to overflowing with
thanksgiving to God, and we should also tell God and others how
thankful we are! God has done so much for us! He deserves our thanks!

Our range of activities included

Fake leprosy sores,
made out of a few bubble circles from the bubble wrap. With a little
double-sided tape it was stuck on to our arms, and using face paint to
make them horribly yellow pus coloured, and then a little red lip stick
blended around the edges to create inflamed infected skin. We talked
about how horrible it must have been to be a leper with nobody wanting
to talk to you or be near you. What joy the lepers in the story must
have felt when healed! How thankful they all should have been!

Invisible thank you prayers,
where we wrote prayers of thanks on paper with the uv pens, then read
them, using special torches, during the celebration. We can’t see
God but we know he is there. WE can see his actions through other
people, and how our prayers are not invisible to God: He sees and hears
everything.

Soap carving.
David Hogg led this activity, taking a bar of soap and carving a cross,
a fish or a heart, letting our creative side come out. As the artist
Michelangelo said: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved
until I set him free.” God can make us clean and shape us.

Thank you paperweight,
created on smooth pebble stones. A design was drawn on our stone,
including the phrase “Thank you”, which was then painted
and more detail/outlines added with marker pens. Finally they were
sprayed with varnish to help the colours look bright and make it last
longer. We thought of the people in our lives who have helped us. Do we
remember to thank them? How does God help us when we pray?

Sad and happy leper - using
paper human shapes we drew a sad face on one side of our
“leper” and a happy face on the other, colouring in the
face, hands and feet. Small bits of material were stuck onto the figure
as robes, and thin strips used as bandages for head, hands and feet.
Small bits of coffee wee sprinkled onto the material, to look
like dirt.

We talked about how nobody wanted to help the lepers
because they were afraid of getting the disease from them – how
do you think this made the lepers feel? The lepers were poor so they
had to use whatever they could find to wrap up their sores – how
would you feel if you had to use bits of dirty old rag instead of a
nice clean plaster when you fall and cut yourself? What would happen to
your cuts? How do you feel when something gets better that has been
making you ill?

Thank you cake
- We spread a little icing (or chocolate) on top of a cake, then used
sweeties to spell out the words THANKYOU. The children took them home
to give to someone they wanted to say thank you to. We talked about how
it is a blessing to give as well as to receive, about how we can help
people who are in need.

Messy eating
- People with leprosy often lose the feeling in their hands and
fingers, as well as their feet and toes, so they need help need help
for all sorts of very ordinary things. Sometimes leprosy can also
affect sight, and even hearing.

This challenge for two friends had one
blindfold, trying to feed the other and give them a drink following
only their partner’s instructions, without making a mess. It was
a fun way of trying to eat and drink when you have to depend on someone
else’s help and they have to depend on your instructions!!

At the celebration time
in the church the puppets led our singing, whilst Shiela Anderson and
Rae Hunter told us about Leprosy and how it is spread. Most people
wrongly think it is contagious, spread by touch, which is wrong. It
seems to spread by someone sneezing over you, a bit like catching a
cold.

Nowadays there are simple and effective cures if caught early,
preventing the disfiguration the disease causes.

A
hearty meal concluded our afternoon, with Joan Cape and her team busy
cooking pasta and a veggie lasagna, with jelly, ice cream and strudel
to follow